Some important changes to seating and upgrades

We have made a few improvements to how our Elite, Gold and Koru members can request a seat.

17 July 2013

Changes to seat select

Elite, Gold and Koru members can now request frequent flyer seating from any fare they purchase on Air New Zealand operated flights.

You no longer need to purchase The Works in order to request a seat in the reserved Frequent Flyer seating area on trans-Tasman and Pacific Island flights. Elite, Gold and Koru frequent flyers already have access to Space + zones on our A320 and 737 domestically regardless of fare purchased.

Here are some examples of what Elite, Gold and Koru members could select*:

* Frequent Flyer seats are only available in the cabin to which the airfare applies. For example, an eligible member with an Economy airfare may select a Frequent Flyer seat from the allocation in the Economy cabin.

There will of course be times when all seats have been allocated. When this occurs, you will continue to get complimentary access to any available Standard Seats. Should you wish, you can purchase one of our paid seats, such as Preferred and Exit Row Seats, as usual.

Online display of available seats

To help with the seat request process, you'll be able to see some changes we've made to online Seat Select when you manage your bookings.

To highlight some of our changes, you will now be able to see:

Where our Frequent Flyer seating is located

When Frequent Flyer seats are occupied

Which seats are complimentary

When all Frequent Flyer seats are taken

You'll continue to see where Standard seating and paid Preferred seats are available. Any unsold paid seating is available free of charge for Elite, Gold and Koru members 48 hours before departure. There are also some seats that you can't select for operational reasons.

Changes to Airpoints upgrades

Improving the loyalty upgrade experience

When we introduced OneUp, we advised Elite, Gold and Silver Airpoints members to submit their loyalty upgrade requests (Recognition and Elite Standby Upgrades) at least 7 days before travel, so we could allow for them as we reviewed OneUp requests. Our usual approval parameters applied for the confirmation of upgrades - any time for Elite, 72 hours prior to travel for Gold and 48 hours for Silver members.

To ensure that loyalty upgrades are processed before OneUp requests, we will be confirming loyalty upgrades first on flights that have availability. This means that upgrade clearance timings will be amended.

The order of timing confirmation will be as follows:

Elite Recognition and Standby Upgrades will continue to be confirmed into available upgrade classes from time of booking (355 days in advance).

Six days from travel we will now manually check and confirm uncleared Elite Recognition and Standby upgrades from available unsold seats (excluding the number of seats held back for commercial sale).

Gold then Silver Recognition Upgrades will be cleared in the same manner.

Immediately following, appropriate OneUp offers will then be accepted.

It is important to note that confirmation of upgrades is still subject to seat availability and load factor. There may be flights that are too busy to allow us to accept any upgrades - loyalty or OneUp - in advance. We will review loyalty upgrades at the airport as usual and confirm upgrades in tier order if seats are available.

We still strongly recommend that you submit your loyalty upgrade request at least 7 days before day of travel so that we can prioritise them before OneUp requests are confirmed.